The United States Department of Transportation (DOT) hopes to have in place by the 2015 holiday season mandatory drone registration for new and existing hobbyists.

The DOT, which supervises the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), still needs to figure out the specifics of registration, including which drones will be included, how users will register the devices, and whether the policy will apply to devices that have already been sold.

We talked with Jonathan Rupprecht, one of the leading drone and aviation lawyers in the world, about impending drone registration and the implications for hobbyists.